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found a nest in October. I was never able to satisfy myself that
the same pair had two broods in the year, but I scarcely think there
can be any doubt about the matter. I once found, like your cor-
respondent Mr. Blewitt, four nests in a small babool tree, and only
one of them occupied. This was at Poona. My brother first
pointed out to me that this species affects the dusty barren plain,
whereas L. erythronotus prefers the cool and shaded country. This
difference in the habits of the two birds is very observable at
Poona, where both species are exceedingly common. Where a
jungly or watered piece of country borders upon the open plain,
you may see half a dozen of each kind within an area of half a mile
radius, and yet never find the one trespassing upon the domain of
the other. When you say you have never found a nest more than
1500 feet above the level of the sea, 1 would remind you that
although L. Witora never ascends the hills, it is yet very abundant
in the Deccan, which is 2000 feet above the sea-level.

" I think I have written to you before that during a residence
of twelve years I never saw L. Witora in Bombay."

This Shrike is, however, essentially a plains bird, and never
seems to ascend the Himalayas to any elevation. I have never
myself found a nest more 1500 feet above the level of the sea.

Typically, the eggs are of a broad oval shape, more or less
pointed towards one end, of a delicate greenish-white ground,
pretty thickly blotched and spotted with various shades of brown
and purple markings, which, always most numerous towards the
large end, exhibit a strong tendency to form there an ill-defined
zone or irregular mottled cap. The variations, however, in shape,
size, colour, extent, and intensity of markings are very great; and
yet., in the huge series before me, there is not one that an oologist
would not at once unhesitatingly set down as a Shrike's. In some
the ground-colour is a delicate pale sea-green. In some it is pale
stone-colour; in others creamy, and in a few it has almost a pink
tinge. The markings, commonly somewhat dull and ill-defined, are
occasionally bold and bright; and in colour they vary through every
shade of yellowish, reddish, olive, and purplish brown, while sub-
surface-looking pale purple clouds are intermingled with the
darker and more defined markings. In one egg the markings may
be almost exclusively confined to a broad, very irregular zone of
bold blotches near the large end. In others the whole surface is
more or less thickly dotted with blotches and spots, so closely
crowded towards the large end as almost wholly to obscure the
ground-colour there. As a rule, the markings are irregular blotches
of greater or less extent, but occasionally these blotches form the
exceptions, and the majority of the markings are mere spots and
specks. In some eggs the purple cloudings greatly predominate ;
in others scarcely a trace of tl'-ein is observable. Some eggs are
comparatively long and narrow, while some are pyriform and blunt
at both ends ; and yet, notwithstanding all these great differences,
there is a strong family likeness between all the eggs. In size
they are> I think, somewhat smaller than those of L. exculitor.